Course Listing

Undergraduates who are interested in environmental sciences may also wish to take courses in:

For a snapshot of courses being offered by Harvard School of Engineering over the next four years, visit our Multi-Year Course Planning tool.

The Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) has compiled a list of Harvard courses most relevant to environmental studies. Visit the HUCE Course Guide for details.

 

Thermodynamics

ENG-SCI 112
2024 Spring

Scot Martin
Monday, Wednesday
12:00pm to 1:15pm

Fundamental concepts and formalisms of conservation of energy and increase of entropy as applied to natural and engineered environmental and biological systems. In addition to lectures, pedagogical approach includes real-world observations and applications through student presentations and projects.

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Stratospheric Dynamics

ENG-SCI 261
2024 Spring

Marianna Linz
Tuesday, Thursday
10:30am to 11:45am

This course will review some introductory geophysical fluid dynamics before focusing primarily on the physics of the stratosphere. Topics covered will include eddy transport of heat and momentum, stratospheric Rossby and gravity waves, wave-mean flow interaction, and tracer transport. The course will alternate lecture with in-class coding activities. Each week will have a preparatory reading and brief assignment.

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Introduction to Environmental Science and Engineering

ESE 6
2024 Spring

Steven Wofsy, Bryan Yoon
Tuesday, Thursday
10:30am to 11:45am

This course will provide students with an introduction to environmental science and engineering by providing an overview of current environmental issues, including climate change, air pollution, and water pollution. Students critically evaluate underlying science and knowledge limitations, and explore the nexus between scientific knowledge, regulatory frameworks, and engineering solutions to some of the world's most pressing environmental problems. The course will emphasize the interconnected biological, geological, and chemical cycles of the earth system including the multi-dimensional impacts of human activity.

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Global Warming Science 101

ESE 101
2024 Spring

Eli Tziperman
Wednesday
3:00pm to 5:45pm

An introduction to the science of global warming/ climate change meant to assist students in understanding issues that often appear in the news and public debates. The course is meant for any student with basic math preparation, not assuming prior science courses. Topics include the greenhouse effect and the consequences of the rise of greenhouse gasses, including sea level rise, ocean acidification, heat waves, droughts, glacier melting, hurricanes, forest fires, and more. An ability to critically evaluate observations, predictions, and risks will be emphasized throughout. The students will be involved in in-class quantitative analysis of climate observations, feedbacks, and models via Python Jupyter notebooks that will be provided.

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Introduction to Physical Oceanography and Climate

ESE 131
2024 Spring

Eli Tziperman
Tuesday, Thursday
10:30am to 11:45am

Observations and fundamentals of ocean dynamics, from the role of the oceans in climate change to beach waves. Topics include the greenhouse effect and the role of the oceans in global warming; El Niño events in the equatorial Pacific Ocean; the wind-driven ocean circulation and the Gulf Stream; coastal upwelling and fisheries; temperature, salinity, the overturning ocean circulation and its effect on global climate stability and variability; wave motions: surface ocean waves, internal waves, tsunamis, and tides; ocean observations by ships, satellites, moorings, floats and more. A field trip to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod will be an opportunity to learn about sea-going oceanography. Students will be doing a group video project and group in-class presentations. Scientific computation and visualization methods will be introduced (students may choose either Matlab or Python) and will be used for some homework assignments.

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Atmospheric Chemistry

ESE 133
2024 Spring

Daniel Jacob
Wednesday, Friday
10:30am to 11:45am

Chemical and physical processes determining the composition of the atmosphere and its implications for climate and life on Earth. Nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon cycles. Climate forcing by greenhouse gases and aerosols. Stratospheric ozone. Oxidizing power of the atmosphere. Methane. Surface air pollution: aerosols and ozone. Deposition to ecosystems: acid rain, nitrogen, mercury. Emphasis is on the construction of simple engineering models and the application of chemical principles to understand and address current environmental issues.

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Applied Environmental Toxicology

ESE 161
2024 Spring

Elsie Sunderland
Tuesday, Thursday
1:30pm to 2:45pm

This course will examine the theory and practical application of environmental chemistry and toxicology for assessing the behavior, toxicity and human health risks of chemical contaminants in the environment. The goals of the course are to: (a) illustrate how various sub-disciplines in environmental toxicology are integrated to understand the behavior of pollutants; (b) demonstrate how scientific information is applied to inform environmental management decisions and public policy through several case studies; and (c) provide an introduction to the legislative framework in which environmental toxicology is conducted. This course will be directed toward undergraduate students with a basic understanding of chemistry and calculus and an interest in applied science and engineering to address environmental management problems.

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State-of-the-Art Harvard Climate Observatory and Associated Instrumentation

ESE 166
2024 Spring

James Anderson
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
1:30pm to 2:45pm

ESE/EPS 166 engages the new Harvard Climate Observatory that will fundamentally herald a new era in the quantitative dissection of the physics controlling critical climate systems. The central objective of the New Climate Observatory is to address this problem by introducing, for the first time, the development of a new generation of advanced technology that takes explicit advantage of recent major advances in laser systems, lidars, radars, nanoelectronics, photonics and optical designs in combination with advanced solar powered stratospheric aeronautical design. Together these enable a combination of long duration solar powered observing systems, each targeted at the highest priority risk factors that threaten global societal stability. The resulting observations will, for the first time, provide the irrefutable evidence needed for quantitative forecasts of the dominant risk factors stemming from the global use of fossil fuels.

While satellites have for years dominated the federal climate programs, for the purpose of developing tested and trusted quantitative forecasts of risk, satellites engender significant disadvantages. In sharp contrast to satellite systems, the new Harvard Climate Observatory provides, for the first time, orders of magnitude improvement in spatial and temporal resolution observations. ESE/EPS 166 will focus explicitly on this new generation of climate observations and forecasting.

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